


Coldhearted

by bookaddict_99



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Brucely is a good dog, Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Season/Series 02 AU, Wally West death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27249625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookaddict_99/pseuds/bookaddict_99
Summary: Artemis is alone in a frozen field waiting for a ghost that will never come home and a family that has abandoned her. Every girl for themselves, Jade said and Artemis starts to find the truth behind that fateful day. Mom had left, Jade had left and ultimately dad had left as well. Artemis had found the Team but now years later she finds that they’ve all left.
Relationships: Artemis Crock/Wally West
Kudos: 15





	Coldhearted

Artemis hears the scream and she knows. She hopes against all hope that she’s wrong, that it’s just her pessimistic brain getting the best of her. She holds her breath and hopes for something impossible. 

Her eyes lock on the red and yellow blur and she  _ hopes _ , but her mind is a dangerous terrain and Artemis doesn’t have a map for what comes next. She had found hope in Wally’s acceptance and touch but Wally is not next to her right now. He’s in a blur of speed no one can truly follow and Artemis feels the dread curl in her fingertips. 

She feels the shiver in her spine almost as if death itself is mocking her. She had faked her own death to achieve a mission but had been secretly alive. Artemis has cheated death more times than anyone should and it feels like death has finally come to collect on all her tricks.

She feels the absence of Wally’s goodbye when he ran off to help his uncle and Bart. She feels the ghost of his kiss when they were in Paris and the dread grows larger and larger with every blur.

The wind stings as it hits her face and the snow somehow feels warm against the coldness of her skin and then they stop running and Barry and Bart are standing there and Wally is nowhere to be found and she  _ knows _ . 

Barry is talking but words no longer hold any meaning to her. What do they matter when it’s not Wally’s voice? The world seems duller somehow and-when did she fall down?

Someone is hugging her from behind but Artemis doesn’t process it. She  _ can’t _ process it because doing so means...it means...it means things she’s not ready to face and-

When had the hours turned into days? Months? Because no matter how much time passes Artemis is still stuck on that arctic field waiting for the day Wally will come back. 

It’s easy faking being ok when she can’t even process the words before her. People talk and talk and Artemis just _ fades _ . What is there to live for? She knows deep down that there is still a life out there but why? Why would Artemis want this world when it has taken everything from her?

The world has never been fair and she feels the ghost of a smile behind her everytime she walks. She finds she can’t shake the fog inside her mind because she’s still in that damned arctic field and Barry and Bart stop running but there’s someone missing. Barry is speaking and he places a hand on her shoulder but Artemis’s eyes are still locked on where the blur of yellow had disappeared. 

She hates Barry even though she doesn’t. She knows deep down it’s not his fault. She rationalizes that Barry had been as much to blame as everyone else on the Team, which is null but...Wally is gone and he’s not. Barry has another day to live and Wally does not. Barry can fill his lungs with air but Wally is simply...gone. There is no body to mourn. There is no explanation except gone and Artemis starts to hate that word. 

She hates the last months she had spent undercover and away from him because already Wally seems harder and harder to remember and Artemis can’t remember the last time they ate dinner together. She forgets the smell of Wally in her bed and her skin feels barren without his touch. 

She looks at Barry and the family he has with Iris and she feels the hate and jealousy grow because that’s what she wants. She wants a family-wanted...wanted because Wally is gone and the family Artemis had always secretly dreamed about is gone. Wiped away from the face of the earth because her boyfriend is dead and Artemis is left with Wally’s last words hanging from Barry’s lips. 

She knows it’s not Barry’s fault but it hurts to look at him and be reminded so Artemis doesn’t look. Wally had chosen to sacrifice himself and she can’t blame everyone else for that but fuck does it hurt. 

Bart is harder to avoid. Apart from being in the Team the younger boy has made it his life’s goal to make sure Artemis is ok. She knows he blames himself for Wally’s death and despite the part of Artemis that wants to comfort him she stays silent. She barely has enough energy to keep herself going.

Bart clings to her and it hurts even more because he’s not Impulse any longer but now Kid Flash and she has to think before she calls  _ his _ name. She hates going on missions where she sees not one but two heads of red hair and a ghost that shouldn’t exist, because he’s gone, haunts her eyes. She holds her breath every time he turns and it  _ hurts _ . A kind of pain Artemis wishes she could claw out of herself but instead she smiles and says, “good job kid,” before locking herself in her room. 

Faking is easy when others don’t want to see the truth. The younger Team don’t know her as much and miss the signs, but the others? 

She knows why Dick misses the memorial and goes MIA the next three months but it doesn’t dull the pain any less. Dick should have stayed. He should have been by her side as they dealt with the repercussions of their actions and Wally’s death but instead he leaves. She can’t hate him too much when she wishes she could do the same. But the Team and League are unwilling to let her slip through the cracks now that she has come back to life so Artemis smiles and sticks around reserving her crying and screaming in the comfort of her room. 

She does blame him when he comes back. Because three months after Wally has died, Dick comes back and Artemis sees the signs of grief clear etched across his face but when one of the kids cracks a joke the smile on Dick’s face is real and her heart breaks. 

Dick has accepted that Wally is gone but Artemis is still stuck on an arctic field waiting for her partner to come home.

She can’t blame Conner and Megan as much as she wants to. Dick and later Wally had always been the only ones capable of seeing through her bullshit and she knows the death of Wally hits Conner and Megan differently than the rest of them. There’s a reality of their situation in the way they handle their relationship as if suddenly understanding the meaning of time that Artemis wishes she would have seen earlier. 

Everyone still reels with Megan’s actions as they pull her away from that shade of grey she had submerged herself and Conner stays by her side. They seem to pull each other closer than possible and Artemis is alone because Dick left and Kaldur is gone.

He doesn’t physically leave. Kaldur joins the Team alongside her but disappears from her side. She understands his actions and the situation has her feeling sadder than angry. Kaldur joins the team without problems and she hates it but understands. 

He stops looking her way or addressing her unless necessary and it feels like betrayal. She and Kaldur had been stuck on that submarine alone for months. They had no one to trust except themselves and Artemis knows the short time there they had formed a bond stronger than anything she could process. But she also knows every time Kaldur sees her face he sees the people they’ve killed and stuff they’ve done and he flinches. 

He carries the same desperation she had in her younger years. The savage need to prove that he’s not bad and his past actions don’t define him. He needs to show the world he is a hero and not the mask he had to wear in order to gain the trust of a father he still cares about but wishes he didn’t. 

She can’t tell him but she understands. Artemis is a product of the Shadow’s upbringing, her father’s words, mother’s hope and a sprinkle of GA and the Team’s presence. She’d worked hard to shed her darker past and had even been willing to leave it all behind for them-for  _ him _ . But then Dick had called with a favor and Artemis had said yes and her childhood didn’t seem so far away now. 

Kaldur ignores her in favor of recovering his morality and Artemis smiles through the pain because she is alone-has always been alone. Dick leaves, Conner and Megan fade, Kaldur ignores her and Artemis turns to look at Wally only to find the ghost of forever turning into a lie. 

She goes on missions and smiles. She fights the bad guys, trains the new kids and smiles some more. She hides Artemis because Artemis is not ready to face the world yet. She’s still waiting in a frozen field for a blur of red and yellow that will never come. She still believes in a lie Tigress can ignore and Artemis forgets herself a little more. 

She can see the look on the kid’s face when she punches a laky a little bit harder than necessary. She leaves a trail of broken bones and blood wherever she goes but it’s better than the alternative. 

How can she call herself the good guy, when she has killed? When her going undercover had felt natural? Almost as if it was always supposed to end this way, with Artemis as Tigress and blood on her hands. 

She doesn’t have the Team to pull her back anymore and a part of her that is still Artemis worries. Artemis had crossed the line for the good of everyone else but had done so with no hesitation. She had flipped between the good and bad side of light with no regard to anything and...fuck. It’s hard pulling her punches and kicks when she knows how easy it is to kill. 

And she thinks about that more and more each day because it’s not fair. Why do the heroes have to die while the villains spend a couple of months in jail before breaking out? Why do the good guys have to die? Why do the bad guys get to kill them without regard to the fatalities they leave behind while they have to hold back?

She wonders how much easier it would be if they just killed the members of the light. Deep down she knows she has no right to be judge, jury and executioner but the thought doesn’t leave. 

Artemis has always been a little dark but willing to do good. Wally had believed in her ability to change the world and she had believed him but Wally is gone now. He’s dead and Artemis is alone looking at a slab of white and black with more grey than she ever thought she could contain and the balck grows. There’s no Wally to pull her back anymore. No Dick to turn to or Kaldur to talk her down. There’s no Megan to cry alongside with or Conner to let her anger out with. 

Artemis is alone in a frozen field waiting for a ghost that will never come home and a family that has abandoned her.  _ Every girl for themselves _ , Jade said and Artemis starts to find the truth behind that fateful day. Mom had left, Jade had left and ultimately dad had left as well. Artemis had found the Team but now years later she finds that they’ve all left. 

Artemis had been Wally’s partner and a feeble hope. Tigress had been a mask and necessary evil. But now Artemis is faced with the reality that none of those masks fit the person she is today because she is a mix of good and bad, crashed into a human body with hopes, wants and regrets. She is a superhero, villain and warrior forged by those better than her to become a weapon for their cause. 

Because Artemis has been used and abused by both sides, sacrificing parts of herself she never wanted to give up for what they thought was right. She has had to mold herself into a shape they will recognize and acknowledge and she’s...done.

Artemis has gotten so used to playing a part she had forgotten what she really felt like. Wally had been good at pulling the truth out of her. He had been genuine and warm and everything a hero was supposed to be. But Wally is gone and it’s proof that maybe heroes aren’t meant to survive in this world.

Artemis knows nothing will bring him back. The realization is enough to break her apat all over again but Artemis doesn’t have the strength for that. She physically can’t bring herself to break down because she’s not sure what pieces will come out of that wreckage.

There’s a lonely blonde girl kneeling in an artic field waiting for a blur of yellow and red that will never come. It’s a pain she’s clings to and isn't able to let go, but now she sees. Artemis is enveloped in a cloud of pain so thick she can’t see what comes next but she can choose which pain she has to endure. 

_ Every girl for herself _ , Jade said.

The Team had left. They left that arctic field grieving but moving on. They had let go of that blur of yellow and red Artemis still looks for. 

_ We’re not a family _ , her dad said.

The arctic is cold and unforgivable. It takes and takes while Artemis gives and gives because Artemis is alone in the cold waiting for a family that never comes.

_ Life isn’t fair _ , her mother had told her and Artemis finds the truth in the words becauseTigress finds Artemis kneeling in an empty arctic field six months later and helps her stand back up. 

She thinks about what life would have been like if Wally were alive. What would she be like? But such thoughts are useless because Wally is dead and thinking of the impossible is just masochist. 

Artemis had thought she found her family. She had been willing to build one with Wally but life had never been fair to her. She is the shadows and the league separated into Artemis and Tigress. She is light and dark, one left abandoned in a field while the other tries to fake life.

But Tigress had shown up when no one else had. Tigress had picked Artemis up and brought her out of that field. The blur of yellow and red is gone. Nothing will bring him back and the pain of waiting for his return will accomplish nothing. Tigress knows that but it’s Artemis’s pain and anger that fuels her. Because Tigress is cold, calculating and unfeeling while Artemis is passion, strength and resilience and together they might just make it. 

“I quit.”

Kaldur stops in the middle of his debrief to look at her in shock. She can feel the stares of the other members but she doesn’t look at them. No. She looks at  _ her _ Team. At the pieces of themselves that remain. The pieces they had managed to salvage from the brutality of life. 

She wonders where everything went wrong. When the people she would have once considered her family started feeling more like strangers than the sisters and brothers they used to be. 

She knows they’re preparing to argue with her. Can see the way they seem to build themselves to square off against her, but Artemis won’t give them this. 

They had ignored it. She knows they must have seen the signs of her reeling after Wally’s death and they had turned a blind eye. They had accepted her fake smiles and bought the facade everyone else had seen. But they weren’t supposed to buy it. 

They’re her family and they were supposed to fight her and push her. They were meant to see past the mirage she painted for others sake and seen her pain.

All Artemis has done her whole life is give and give while the people around her take. She’d spent her childhood trying to please a father whom she would never be good enough for. Had tried to be good at everything because there had to be a reason why Jade left her. Something she’s missing and lacking forcing the older girl to leave her behind. She’d spent the time after her mom came back trying to please her and then her younger years fighting to please the team and other superheroes. 

She has shed tears, sweat and blood for this team only to be pushed back by a facade good enough for them to dismiss despite knowing it’s a lie. These are the people she’s been raised with. They know her better than probably her own mother does, certainly better than Jade and her dad and still they ignored her. 

“Don’t bother.” She holds her hand up, halting their words. “My decision is made. I imagine I’ll be removed from the database by tonight.”

“Artemis,” Dick chokes out and she can see the way he shifts as if to reach her.

A part of her wants to do this. Exploding all her rage and hurt would be cathartic and feel great. She wants them to hurt as much as she does because...because this  _ ball _ . This thing inside her chest grows tighter and tighter with her every breath and Artemis is not sure she’ll be able to survive the fallout. She wants them to feel the way she feels because it’s not fair but she knows she can’t. While doing so would feel great she also knows it would be a form of healing and Artemis is not ready for that. 

No. Instead she wants to let this hurt fester. She wants the pain and betrayal to linger until it poisons her lungs and it’s all that’s keeping her standing because this pain is easier to deal with than the reminder that he’s  _ gone _ . She turns her back and leaves as quickly as she can, the zeta tube announcing her dismissal. 

She knows the others won’t follow her. They’ll let her take the day off to calm down and try tomorrow but by then it’ll be too late. She knows this because she knows them but apparently they don’t know her and it’s better this way-she planned it this way.

She makes her way to her apartment where Brucely greets her excitedly, tail hitting everything it can reach. She thinks of the kind of promise Brucely represents. The beginning she and Wally had hinted at his arrival but had never been able to manifest.

How many promises had she been robbed of?

“Come on buddy, we got some cleaning to do,” she murmurs. 

Brucely is a calm companion as she goes around her apartment cleaning it out. Anything she doesn’t need goes to a donation box and the few pieces she thinks are nice she decides to take them to her mom’s apartment. 

She’s moving pretty fast through her routine when she reaches Wally’s things. She’d avoided them after his death and a part of her still does but she reminds herself that this is the first part. Artemis is no longer waiting in that arctic field and she needs to do this. 

She doesn’t cry. She thanks Tigress for that as she takes his things out and places them into boxes. She doesn’t let her mask crack but pieces of Artemis shine through and she saves a few things for herself. 

It’s almost night when she finally leaves but it doesn’t seem like goodbye. Artemis had already let go of that apartment once when she’d gone undercover and she finds the act of doing so again less painful. 

The donations boxes have been dropped off and now she only has a handful she needs to deliver. She leaves Wally’s stuff on the doorstep of Mary and Rudy West’s house with the words  _ I’m sorry _ written on a sticky note.

Brucely whines when she comes back as if knowing what she’s done. As if he understands what she’s letting go.

She takes a moment to breathe him in. To absorb Brucely and the memories of him and Wally before she locks them in a box and takes his leash. She reaches the apartment fairly fast and doesn’t hesitate to knock.

Jade leans against the door, smirk in place and mouth opening to deliver one of her lines but Artemis is not in a mood. She pushes her slightly away, pushing Brucely into the apartment and dropping his bag inside.

“Artemis what the hell-”

“You owe me.” She kneels to give Brucely one final pet and kiss.

She can’t have this, not where she’s going. She owes Brucely the safety and security this apartment will give him. She owes it to Wally to look after their dog and the promises that never came. 

One day she’ll be back. One day Artemis will be more Artemis than she is pain and she’ll be able to keep her dog and the memories that never got to grow.

Jade laughs, the sound low and throaty. “Oh no. You  _ died _ ,” she hisses. “If anybody owes someone something it’s you. You died and-”

“You left.” Her words are flat and cold clashing with the grey in Jade’s eyes. It’s minute but Artemis catches the flinch in Jade’s face that she tries to hide. 

“So what?” The dark haired woman scoffs. “You want us to pet sit your fleabag? I swear Artemis if that thing bites my daughter-”

She spots Roy or well, Will as he had started asking others to call him, cradling Lian. His hair is red and it reminds her of a lighter shade she used to share her life with and Artemis realizes Jade has it. 

Jade has the husband and the baby. She has a life and everything Artemis wanted but can no longer have because Wally is dead and he’s not coming back. Because in life it’s every girl for herself but Artemis had been holding out to the hope that someone would come help her. She had hoped and hoped but hope was for the stupid as life had taught her. Artemis had hoped and waited in an arctic field and no one had come to bring her home.

The dark haired baby looks at her curiously and Artemis feels that pang inside of her throb.

_ It’s not fair. _

“I need to take care of some things. I’ll be back in a few months to pick him up.”

Artemis forces herself not to look back. Brucely is that last part of Wally that she has but where she’s going is no place for the loyal dog. She knows Jade will take care of the dog if not because Artemis asks then she will for that sense of loyalty she knows she carries inside her. They might not be sisters but blood is still binding them no matter which way they go through life. 

“Artemis.” There’s something in Jade’s voice. An emotion Artemis discards as fear because it’s  _ Jade _ . “Don’t do anything stupid.”

She doesn’t bother replying and walks out of the apartment leaving a little piece of her behind. But it’s ok because Artemis will come back and then everything will be alright. But right now Artemis is not Artemis but is Tigress instead and Brucely doesn’t need that in his life.

Tigress who is cold and unforgiving and will do the things others are too afraid of doing. Tigress who knows what reality is like but will do something about it. Tigress who is on a hunt. 

She calls Ollie on her way to her last drop off. She knows it’s late and there’s a chance the man won’t answer her if he’s in patrol but Artemis should know better because Ollie has always been there, pushing past his awkwardness and discomfort to try and help her. 

“Artemis? Is everything ok?”

“Everything's fine Ollie,” she says, calming the panic in his voice. Not, I’m fine because they both know it’ll be a lie. “I just wanted...I needed...I-it’s not your fault.” She settles upon. “You are not responsible for other people’s actions Ollie, you never have been and you have always been so good.”

“Artemis? What’s going on? Do you need me to head over there?” She can feel the fear in Ollie’s tone and she knows the blond haired man won’t hesitate to come find her at an empty apartment she no longer lives in.

“No, it’s fine Ollie. I’m...it’s ok. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“Artemis.” There’s a warning in his tone. She knows if she doesn’t give him a response Ollie will stick his nose into this and mess her plans up before they’ve even begun. 

It’s a sentimental part of her she can’t shake that pulled at her to call her old mentor. Wally is gone but there are other people still here. People Artemis hopes won’t hate her too much for what she’s about to do.

“I quit the Team,” she offers as an explanation and hears Ollie inhale sharply through the phone. 

“Oh, Artemis I-”

“It was my decision Ollie. Everything is on me. Not on you, do you understand?” her words seem a bit desperate to the older man but Artemis doesn’t know how to disguise them.

She knows her actions will hurt the people closest to her but she’s willing to pay the price. Artemis can live with their disappointment and betrayal as long as she knows the pieces of herself that can still hold Wally won’t fade and be forgotten under a blanket of snow. 

Far away on the phone Artemis hears police sirens. She doesn’t have to see him to feel Ollie’s indecisiveness. 

“It’s ok Ollie. Go kick some crime butt.”

“I’m here if you need me Artemis.”

“I know,” she sighs.

“I mean it. For anything.”

She shuts her eyes. Ollie doesn’t know how much his words mean to her and how empty they will be once the truth comes out. Ollie is a hero, a man worthy of the title and Artemis is the remnants of a life too cruel to put her down. 

“Bye Ollie.”

“Love you kid.”

“Love you too.”

Her last stop of the night lies in Gotham. Her mother is not expecting her at this time of night but the boxes on her arms are answer enough. 

Facing her mother after her fake death and Wally’s real one had been hard. Paula had been crying and real beneath her hands and despite crying into her arms a part of Artemis had still been sitting in that arctic field searching for a boy that would never come home. 

She’s not sure what she’s saying as she prattles around the apartment putting stuff away but her mother watches. She makes her tea, kissing the top of her mother’s head before heading to her old room. 

Jade and mom had left but dad had stayed. He had raised Artemis until her mother came back and this house carries as much of his presence as her mother’s.

She’s not sure why her mother has never gotten rid of their father’s influence but Artemis is thankful for it at this moment. The duffle bag at her side fills quickly with some old weapons and cash she had also hidden in the house. She takes anything she can find before making her way out of the room.

She wonders when her mother will say something. Paula Nguyen is not stupid and Artemis knows her mom knows what she’s doing. She might not know all the details but Artemis is as much of her father’s daughter as she is her mother’s.

She wonders in another universe what her mother would have done. If her mother still had her legs what would have become of her? What would have become of them?

But wondering leads nowhere because the truth is harsh and cruel and it doesn’t care for Artemis’s fantasies or hopes or dreams and instead it takes and takes until there’s nothing else for it to take.

Or maybe this is just something else it will take, she muses.

“Artemis,” her mother says, stopping her hand from closing around the doorknob. “No boy is worth this much.”

That is true. Artemis is her mother’s daughter and she knows how hurtful love can be. She knows the obsession between Sportsmaster and Huntress had led to the accident. It’s what had broken her parents up and sent her spiraling. 

Love had led her mother to nothing but pain and boys were never worth that. Boys were to be enjoyed and sampled like Jade had done. They were to be placeholders you decided what parts of yourself to share.

But Wally is not any boy. Wally was family before she learned to love him. Wally was her partner before he was her boyfriend and Wally was never just a boy. Throughout her life Artemis had grown next to the red haired speedster not noticing when the pieces of herself mixed with his, until Artemis became Artemis and Wally. She had grown parts of herself with him that would never grow back now that he was gone. There are pieces of Artemis that will always remain broken and jagged at this loss and nothing will dull that pain.

Tears blur her eyes and grief strangles her throat. Wally is so much more than just a boy and maybe her mother knows it too. Maybe that’s why she says those words because Artemis knows this pain is nothing compared to what comes next. 

Love is beautiful. It can be gentle and happy. Quick with laughter and joy. Love is her and Wally growing up and building a life. Love is the promises their eyes hold and the secrets their minds whisper to each other in the dark.

But love is also obsessive and painful. It’s an unheard goodbye and cold digging into her knees. It’s an empty apartment and haunting ghosts. It’s pictures of a tomorrow that will never come and the remembrance of a touch she’ll never feel. 

It’s longing and pain all warped into one and shoved inside her chest until she’s no longer sure what’s pumping the blood in her body or if she even has one.

Artemis had love once. It was beautiful and hopeful and it was  _ gone _ . Gone like the blur of red and yellow she’ll never be able to catch. Gone with green eyes and red hair and rough hands that fit just right against her hips. Gone like the pieces of herself she had tried to salvage because it doesn’t matter anymore.

“This one is.”


End file.
